Anchorage is just about the same distance from Seattle as Chicago, yet it falls to Seattlest to chronicle not the latest Obama puppy story but an Alaska fish tale. more ›

Shortly before 3am on Easter Sunday, the Alaska Coast Guard received a mayday call from the Seattle-based, Alaskan Ranger. The fishing trawler was flooding, taking on water in its rudder room. The ship sank en route to Mackerel grounds in a stormy Bering Sea, with 20-foot waves and 30 mph winds. Four crew members, including the captain, died of hypothermia when the ship sank. Forty-two members of the crew were rescued, plucked out of the Bering Sea by Coast Guard helicopters and rescue ships. Some of the survivors had been in the Bering Sea for upwards of four hours before being rescued. more ›

Twenty-one years ago, a suburban Seattle elementary school science class signed type-written messages, put them in bottles, and dropped them in Puget Sound. Earlier this month, Merle Brandell, a bear hunter in Alaska found one of the soda bottles in the Bering Sea and was intrigued by the message. The letter read:

[This letter] is part of our science project to study oceans and learn about people in distant lands.Please send the date and location of the bottle with your address. I will send you my picture and tell you when and where the bottle was placed in the ocean. Your friend, Emily Hwaung.

The fire started in the boat's laundry room and spread throughout the boat. The fire burned for five hours before being extinguished by 16 crew members, who stayed on board to fight the blaze. Eighty percent of the Pacific Glacier's crew calls the Seattle-area home. The entire crew survived the fire without incident or injury, despite the whole floating in the Bering Sea in the middle of February in a life raft or fighting a fire in an enclosed space thing. more ›